Who Did It?
by TangledPencils
Summary: Nick has to solve the crime before time runs out. Can he do it? Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: Please see at the end, I didn't want to spoil it for anyone.**

**Thanks to my beta, nicol-leoraine for her thoughts on this. **

Who Did It?

Nick scrubbed his hand over his forehead, trying to relieve the tension headache he could feel building behind his eyes. He'd worked solo before, but not on a case anything like this one. He was being pressured to solve it, and solve it fast. His position on the night shift depended on him working out this crime, and he was starting to feel the strain.

Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply for a few seconds, trying to steady his nerves, and calm his racing thoughts. This was no time to crack. He had to be strong, both for himself, and for his teammates.

Opening his eyes again, he stared blankly at the wall for a moment, jaws working mechanically on a stick of chewing gum. His thoughts flitted about, barely settling on one piece of evidence before flitting to another, then back to the crime scene, and on to the victim. He knew he had to think about how to proceed, it was really important…a lot was riding on the solving of this crime. He couldn't let his teammates down, and he especially couldn't let Grissom down.

That particular thought brought him up short, and memories of previous cases brought one of Grissom's catch phrases to mind…

'_Follow the evidence!'_

That was closely followed by _'What does the evidence tell you?'_

Sighing with relief, he brought his gaze back to the here and now, leant forward and refocused on the details laid out in front of him. Ok, he could do this.

Start at the beginning.

The victim was rich, rumoured to be one of the former king pins of the Las Vegas underworld, but nothing had ever been proven. He'd lived in a mansion in the rich part of town, and the palatial building had more rooms than Nick could imagine he'd ever need. There was a huge party room that was supposedly where he'd hosted events anywhere from a black tie dinner for all the city's top brass to a private performance of Cirque de Soleil. On the top floor, there was even a room with a retractable ceiling that allowed the victim to use the huge rotating telescope that was bolted to the floor below.

The victim had had plenty of enemies, and it appeared that one of them may have decided it was time to get even. Stabbed multiple times with what appeared to be a large knife, he'd been found lying on the kitchen floor by the live-in cook as she went to make herself a midnight snack.

According to the report, the victim had put up a struggle, as there were defensive marks on his hands and arms. Time of death was estimated as being around 11pm, with the discovery of the body occurring around 11.20pm. That didn't give anyone a lot of time to escape from a house the size of a school, and as all of the alarms were still set and active, the occupants of the house immediately became suspects.

Nick considered the suspects, pursing his lips in thought. There were six of them, four employees and two visitors, one of which was the victim's ex-wife.

A cook, a butler, a secretary, a bookkeeper, a self-proclaimed minister of a hokey religious cult, and an ex-wife. Talk about a bunch of misfits! Nick grinned to himself. Now all he needed was the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Giving himself a mental shake, he hauled his thoughts away from nursery rhymes and back to the suspects.

The cook had been hysterical at finding the body of her employer. Her 911 call was frantic and the operator had had to ask her several times to calm down. Subsequent interviews with her had revealed she'd had a secret crush on the victim, but had known he was out of her league. She'd been content to remain in his life as a valued employee, a cook who was more of a chef, and whose culinary skills had been known of throughout Las Vegas.

Her alibi was rock solid…she'd been on the phone to the DA's wife, giving detailed instructions of how to cook a particular dish that was her speciality for over an hour, and hadn't finished the call until minutes before finding the body.

So, Nick mused, that pretty much let the cook off the hook.

The butler was next to receive Nick's consideration.

He'd worked at the mansion for nearly 10 years, performing the mixed duties of butler, valet, chauffeur and bodyguard to the deceased. He was close to retirement according to him, and would not be looking for future employment now that his current position was redundant, he'd said. He'd last seen the victim at about 9pm, when he'd been told his employer didn't require his services anymore that evening, and that he would see him in the morning. His alibi of then watching tv before falling asleep in front of it was weak, but the same type of thing many people did, and was hardly abnormal behaviour.

'_Ok,' Nick thought, 'that's one for the possible list.'_

The secretary…ah yes, the secretary. Nick smirked as he looked at her picture.

'I'll just bet she was _only_ the secretary,' he thought. 'Looks like she could fit in with half the hookers in Vegas.'

She'd only worked for the victim for a few months, and was apparently not hired for her secretarial skills. According to her, there was really very little 'work' for her to do. She was employed more as a companion, and assistant 'host', when her employer needed a partner to accompany him. She'd come across as a gold digger to Nick, and the fact she'd given her alibi as 'discussing conversion' with the wacko minister led him to believe she couldn't be totally removed from the suspect list.

The aforementioned minister was on an equal footing with the secretary, in being regarded as a gold digger by Nick. He'd founded a weirdo cult-like religion based on _mice_ for pete's sake, and had been staying with the victim while trying to convert some followers to his strange idea. Apparently, they'd known each other since high school, and the minister would frequently stay at the victim's house on 'visits'. He substantiated the secretary's alibi, and claimed they were together at the time of the murder.

Nick shook his head in amazement at the antics of the minister. Mice? MICE? Geez, now he'd heard nearly everything!

Continuing to check the suspect list, Nick focused on the bookkeeper. He'd claimed to have taken a sleeping pill when he'd retired for the evening around 8pm, and had in fact, had to be forcibly woken to be questioned by the police. A blood test had confirmed the presence of the drug in his system, and the testing doctor had stated that it was apparently a prescribed medication, that the man was currently under a doctor's orders to take. Combining the fact that the man was 5 foot high, and about 8 stone wringing wet, with all the musculature of a soggy marshmallow, Nick couldn't see how he could possibly have managed to kill the victim.

That left the ex-wife, quite often a prime suspect in homicides, but not in this one, Nick thought. She was bedridden, having suffered a stroke a year previously, and the victim had graciously offered her a room while she recovered. Her physical health was better, but still not up to the standard required to sneak around a house the size of many hotels, and then attack and kill someone by hand. No, it looked like she was also off the list.

'_So,' Nick thought, 'who does that leave me with? The butler, the secretary and the reverend. One of them must be the murderer, but which one?_'

Nick sat back in his chair, closing his eyes, and massaging the bridge of his nose. His headache was getting worse, making it hard to think, and he was also starting to feel nauseous. The stress of the case was definitely getting to him, and he could feel the tension starting to come off him in waves and bounce around the room.

Sighing deeply, he shot a quick glance at the clock before sitting forward again to again regard the evidence. He knew the answer was in front of him, he just couldn't for the life of him see it, and that knowledge was starting to annoy him.

Running his eyes over everything in front of him, he suddenly stiffened. There was something that wasn't right…something that his subconscious had noted, but his brain was still trying to catch up with. Some little thing that now had his mental alarm bells ringing wildly, he just had to figure out exactly what it was.

He regarded each item in turn…crime scene photos, close up of the victim's wounds, the files of the suspects, with their photos attached, …

'_Hold the phone, that's it!'_ Nick nearly fell off his chair in excitement, as he hurriedly grabbed one of the files, and looked again at the photo on the front. There! That was the information he'd seen! He hurriedly skimmed the text in the file, confirming his guess. The man in the photo was in the uniform of a marine colonel, complete with rifle and side arm, and with a large combat knife showing in his boot. He had the weapon, the training, and above all, according to his file he was as camp as a row of pink tents…he'd been in love with the victim…and it was probably un-returned love at that!

He had it now, the weapon, the motive and above all, the name of the killer.

"Yes!' he yelled, shooting to his feet and stabbing his hand down on the stop mechanism of the time clock beside him.

"I know who did it!" He turned to regard his watching teammates, now all sitting up in their chairs and eagerly awaiting his answer.

"In that case Mr Stokes, I suggest you tell us who you suspect is the culprit," Ecklie said in a condescending voice.

Nick flashed a glance at the stopped time, registering that only 17 minutes had passed since he'd first seen the evidence. He smirked happily, knowing his answer would probably piss Ecklie off big time, as it was well within the allowed time frame.

"Simple really," he started, and then paused for effect. "The butler did it."

Groans of pain came from the team as they realised the bad joke he'd made. Nick grinned fiendishly, and then turned to Ecklie.

"To be more precise, it was Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen with the dagger!"

--ooOoo--

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from CSI, and I don't own anything with regards to Cluedo...I don't even own a copy of the board game. I'm not making any money from this story, I'm just trying to chase that damn plot bunny away!  
**

**A/N: I was at work when this idea hit me, and it just wouldn't go away. As far as I can remember, I haven't seen this idea used anywhere, although I may be wrong on that point. This is an original idea I had, and I haven't copied it from anyone else. If you don't 'get' it, this is based on the board game "Cluedo" or "Clue". If that still doesn't help, try googling it, and looking at Wikipedia's definition, that should help. **


End file.
